You Can’t Regulate Emotions If You Don’t Understand Emotions
We hear a lot these days about emotional regulation. But how are we supposed to regulate emotions when we were never taught what they are or how they work in the mind and body? A basic education in emotions is necessary for us all if we want to thrive and feel well. And the Change Triangle is simply the best tool I have come across to learn about them.
What Is a Dysregulated Nervous System?
A dysregulated nervous system is one in which the body’s alarm system gets stuck in states of high alert or shutdown, making it harder for our body to feel calm and our mind to think and function well. When our nervous system is dysregulated, we can’t respond flexibly to what’s happening around us. The increase in stress hormones negatively affects our health. And we feel awful physically and mentally.
Many situations may lead to us becoming dysregulated, depending on our genetics, disposition, and past experiences: Three common examples are:
1. Perceived threats or danger: Being yelled at, criticized, rejected, or feeling unsafe can activate the sympathetic nervous system, triggering fight-or-flight responses.
2. Overwhelming emotions: Intense fear, shame, anger, or grief, especially when experienced without adequate support, can push the nervous system outside its optimal range of regulation.
3. Chronic stress and exhaustion: Ongoing work pressure, relationship conflict, sleep deprivation, or prolonged uncertainty can impair the nervous system's ability to recover and maintain balance.
While emotions themselves are not inherently dysregulating, emotions and nervous system regulation are intimately connected. Dysregulation occurs when emotional intensity exceeds the capacity to tolerate and process the experience.
Emotions Education
Most of us grow up learning very little about how emotions actually work in the mind and body. Our society doesn't yet teach us about emotions in school, even though we need it as much as we need to learn the alphabet or the multiplication table.
Emotions affect us every day. When you feel something, what do you do with that feeling. Do you get curious about it? Sense it in your body? Work with it? Most people just push their emotions way as they judge themselves for having the feeling the first place. We are told emotions are weak. We are told that strong people don't have big emotions. These messages have consequences.
If we are lucky, we may be able to identify when we feel angry, anxious, sad, or ashamed, but most people aren't taught what individual feelings are trying to tell us, or how to recognize them in our bodies, or what to do with them.
Emotions education teaches us how emotions work, how to recognize what we’re feeling, and how to work with our emotional experiences instead of automatically avoiding, suppressing or reacting to them.
Blocked, buried, and avoided emotions contribute to nervous system dysregulation. Learning to recognize and safely work with our emotions helps the nervous system return to a more regulated state. This is why we need emotions education.
Emotions, contrary to what our emotion-phobic society would have us believe, are not problems to get rid of. They are information to understand.
The Change Triangle® and Emotional Regulation
The Change Triangle is a practical tool for emotions education. Adapted from the academic literature and AEDP psychotherapy, the Change Triangle is an emotional roadmap that helps us become curious about what is happening inside us.
When something triggers us, we can pause and ask:
What am I feeling?
Where do I feel it in my body?
Is there another feeling underneath?
What does this emotion need?
Creating space between feeling and reacting gives us an opportunity to work with our emotions instead of reflexively trying to get rid of them.
We can feel anger without automatically acting on it.
We can feel anxiety without letting it run our lives.
We can feel sadness without shutting down.
Instead of immediately reaching for a drink to numb a hard feeling, lashing out when we’re upset, or disconnecting from ourselves, we can learn to stay with what we’re experiencing and work the Change Triangle.
When we find and safely move through our core emotions, the nervous system has an opportunity to settle.
Emotional regulation isn’t about controlling or suppressing our feelings. It’s about learning how to be with our feelings so they can move through us.
The more we understand our emotional lives, the more choices we have in how we respond—to ourselves, to other people, and to whatever life brings our way.
Want to Try a Little Experiment?
The next time you notice getting upset or dysregulated, find a quiet place to get curious about it.
Take a slow, deep belly breath and bring your attention below your neck.
Where do you feel the anxiety in your body?
Maybe there’s tightness in your chest, butterflies in your stomach, a racing heart, or a jittery feeling throughout your body. Don’t try to change anything. Just notice what is there with curiosity and without judgment.
Now gently ask yourself:
What emotions might be underneath my distress?
Am I angry? Sad? Afraid? Disgusted? Excited?
You don’t have to figure anything out. Just notice and name whatever is there, making space for each emotion one at a time.
Then take another slow breath and notice your body again.
Has anything shifted—even a little?
Either way, you’ve just a applied emotions education. You noticed what was happening in your mind and body, got curious about the emotions underneath, and gave your nervous system an opportunity to settle.
A+ for trying!
Further reading:
It's Not Always Depression (Random House)
Parents Have Feelings, Too (Alcove Press/PRH)
